[Athen] tips to avoid cognitive overload

[Deborah Armstrong]

I was asked by several instructors to join their zoom online classes to insure accessibility.

One thing I'm seeing over and over again, especially with folks new to online learning is that instructors put all the tools out there. They have students opening a page in their textbook, pulling up a handout on Canvas, working on the whiteboard and the instructor's PowerPoint is being displayed on a shared screen.

Most of the nondisabled folks not to mention the new instructor were suffering from cognitive overload. I, as a blind student who thankfully didn't need a good grade also struggled to keep up with it all.

I think we need to remind instructors that one thing at a time is best. Students who are sighted are now in the same predicament I am for a refreshing change: they cannot look at their neighbor to see what textbook page was being referred to.

Tell students five minutes ahead of time they will be referring to page 238, bottom third of the page, the box in blue.

Distribute the PowerPoint to the class ahead of time so they don't need to look at the shared screen if they don't want to.

Create pauses for students to update their notes. For example, half the class could be in a discussion in realtime while the other half caught up.

Announce expectations at the beginning "we'll be discussing this week's reading and afterwards I'm giving a 30-minute lecture. Then we'll break in to small groups to discuss my lecture and each of you will need to produce a list of questions about things you would like to research over the next week. You'll need page 40 in your textbook and the handout on Canvas titled The basics, but you won't need that handout until after my lecture. I won't need you to turn in your list of questions, just pick one to share with the class so you don't need to write neatly.".

Remember people can't look at everything at once. Don't say "click here" if demoing something on your shared screen. Not only can I not see it but sighted students might be writing notes, looking at the textbook or dealing with a notification that popped up that they haven't figured out how to turn off. We know flaky students text in class, but dedicated students also get interrupted in class if the computer decides to do an update. Instead say what you are clicking on.

Few instructors seem to stay this organized when they are also trying to get the online stuff working, but the less organized they are, the more students suffer.

--Debee
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20200326/008371e1/attachment.html>